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And you did say you "DIT" now you changed it to a kid downloading footage to make your original statement true.

Dude, I work on dozens of shows a year and I do a myriad of jobs, based on my clients needs. I've done DIT on some shows and other shows I've been the cinematographer. I've also done both on multiple shows, including two this year.

 

Sorry it's "confusing" to get it all organized, but I don't even remember half the poop I do. Today I worked on 3 different shows, coloring one and editing two others. It's a constant stream because I know the tools and I make the time for my clients to be in front of them, so when they have bigger jobs -which they do- I will be front and center.

 

Your confusing the masters with mastering .

There is no confusion, that's why I wrote out a detailed explanation above so there would be no confusion.

 

Confusing tv shows and doc's with high budget feature films .

A show is a show in my book. I don't believe in segregating based on project type and budget. I use the same tools for the majority of my work, outside of personal work, where I experiment more with different cameras, lenses and editing tools.

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almost all the professional editors I know like to edit feature films from dit's proxies with LUT applied and maybe 2.35 /2.39 bars if necessary. normally something like ProresLT fullhd or prores proxy. the last time the editor used Avid and wanted fullhd dnx36 files.

It is just that editing has to be smooth with minimum transfer times and logistics and that is usually easiest if having smaller files with LUT already applied and downscaled to HD so that they can be easily played back and edited even with a basic laptop if necessary and they don't need huge amounts of RAID storage to edit directly from the camera originals.

Editing generally does not benefit a lot from using very high quality originals unless you are doing the post by yourself and don't have time for online.

But editors love to just receive a portable drive or two including all the materials and to send the XML and low quality playout and move on to the next project when finished.

It is just saving time of the people who cost more per hour and don't have the time to do all the finishing and additional work which is not their territory and can be easily managed by technical personnel.

 

It's like letting the directors to carry sandbags on movie set instead of having them to plan the next shot...

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You should segregate because your arguments make no sense for all types of productions . Even your arguments are confusing no wonder your confused on many aspects of production

I have no idea why people segregate, it doesn't make any sense to me. Editors are storytellers, cinematographers are artists, actors are entertainers, people who do these and all the other positions on set and in post, shouldn't be pigeonholed based on prior experience.

 

It's the same with production and post production techniques. Camera and post capabilities have left us able to do amazing things and the days of being bound to "classical" workflows are dwindling. Today, workflows are more diverse then ever and so are the people who are willing to experiment and grow. That's the future of this industry, not the guy who only knows Avid and whose system can only cut DNX36.

 

I'm not confused about anything. I may say things that confuse people, but that's because they don't understand the context. Like I said above, I'm not trying to use classical workflows because I can't afford the time and money. The money we save on not having a DIT, on not having an AE, on not having much help on set for the camera department, on editing camera originals, is money we can put into actors, sets, locations, camera, lenses, stuff that pays dividends in the final product. This is filmmaking 101 stuff and in a world where $250,000 movies are the new norm, you've gotta save money where you can. This workflow works for any type of production, the only reason bigger shows have more, higher paid people, is because they're union. Big shows need that "security" for the insurance bond.

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The money we save on not having a DIT, on not having an AE, on not having much help on set for the camera department, on editing camera originals, is money we can put into actors, sets, locations, camera, lenses, stuff that pays dividends in the final product. This is filmmaking 101 stuff and in a world where $250,000 movies are the new norm, you've gotta save money where you can.

These are totally false economies. I've shot more than a few $250,000 movies, and we always had a DIT, and proper crewing. No-one in their right mind is going to entrust the final color and mastering to some jack-of-all-trades editor. Just doesn't happen.

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In your world perhaps. Then again, I've made a living at being a jack of all trades. I've made a living enjoying myself and not being forced to conform for the sake normalcy.

 

 

I would disagree.. where as its always good to have some idea about the needs of others on set.. in film making particularly .. you get the best from people who have specialized in one area.. all their experience is being built in that field.. there is a reason for the saying "Jack of all trades master of none".. it goes back hundreds of years .. and applied to any craft.. all younger people have to start on low paid.. often straight out exploitation shoots.. but you seem to want this become the norm for all productions.. its something you get out off as soon as you can work on real jobs.. not to be heralded as something great and new .. nothing new about it...and its a shame and frankly dangerous that this low pay.. do anything on set BS.. even exists in the first place.. would you get on a plane if the pilot was the guy you saw checking in bags.. or a surgeon who was working in the canteen.. I wouldn't ..:)

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I shot about six HD features before I ever worked with a DIT on a series (but those early HD features were tape-based, so no downloads / back-ups on set were needed).

 

There are good reasons to have a DIT when you need their services, particularly if you plan on making offline dailies for editorial on the camera truck along with all the back-ups. And I've done most of my TV series work without a DIT ("Smash", "Extant", etc.) or just had a DIT for the first week of shooting.

 

But a DIT is not an absolute necessity if you don't plan on any look management or color-correction on set and just work with one or two LUTs built in prep or the in-camera Rec.709 LUT for viewing, and you don't plan on making the dailies yourself -- at this point, all you really need is someone to do data management, a loader, which is what happened on the TV series that I did without a DIT in the budget. So I can imagine an independent low-budget feature working without a DIT if they don't have the budget for one.

 

But then it becomes necessary of the expertise of the DIT to be disseminated among everyone else, the DP, the operators and AC, the loader, etc. (which is not always the most efficient way to work). Today with most crews being familiar now with the Alexa, for example, this is getting easier and easier. In the early days of digital when there was a new camera and software every six months, it was hard for everyone to be on the same page and the DIT was almost the digital camera tech for the crew.

 

All that said, it's nice to have a DIT on a show, especially with all the monitors that have to be fed on a set.

 

What I really can't imagine, though, is doing the final color-correction for delivery without using calibrated monitors, scopes, etc. and without a colorist who is experienced at delivering everything within spec. I've done one or two short films for festivals where the director basically found some editor who wanted to play colorist and the results were always mediocre and inaccurate once screened. I even had one short film where the director had to redo the entire color-correction at a proper post house once he saw the project outside the editor's system and realized how off everything was. Of course, if you're only dumping everything online where who knows how it is going to look on everyone's devices, maybe being precise is sort of pointless....

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People who specialize are expensive, they can get decent money because they're "experts" in their field. This puts a burden on production because you need more physical people since everyone has their own specialty.

 

A great example of this was the last commercial I shot. We had a great gaffing crew, but they refused to help the camera department. So after they setup the lights, they went outside and had a smoke, whilst we needed someone to download cards. Umm, why should I pay someone $250/day to download 4 cards, when there are a bunch of guys outside smoking, one of which could be assigned to do that task, if they knew anything about it. On that same shoot, our grip was ill one day and all someone needed to do was push the dolly. We figured someone on the crew could replace that job, but again, nobody would do it. We wound up having to pay someone an exorbitant amount of money to grip that day. I would have done it, had I not been the cinematographer and camera operator. On another shoot this year where I was DIT and camera assistant, the boom operator was harassing one of the cast, so we had to fire them. We needed an operator right then and there, so I actually had to run the boom... because NOBODY else would do it. I have a great deal of experience working a boom, so it wasn't a big deal. But here we are, a small production with 25 crew members and NOBODY ELSE would do it? It infuriated me to see 16 or so people outside smoking and talking during our shoot when the camera operator needed help and I had to put the boom down to help'em.

 

There is a stigma in this industry -and many others for that matter- where people only know what they NEED to know and no more. They don't want to do anything else, so they rush through their job and spend the rest of the time goofing off instead of being an active participant in the production IF NEEDED. When I'm on set and I have down time, I'm looking for things to do. Put sand bags on stands, make sure wiring is covered and out of the way. I'm a willing participant because there are always things to do and I care about how things come out in the long run.

 

Now, I'm not saying your gaffer should be editing your film and your audio guy should be gaffing, far from it. I'm only saying, there is no reason for a cinematographer to not operate, or an AC to not be a DIT. There is no reason for an editor to not learn how to color and a set sound recordist to not learn how to run boom. I also think if people are outside smoking most of the day, there should be other jobs for them to do. I don't care what they are, sweep the damn floors for all I care. But down time on small-budget productions should be spent prepping the next scene and/or helping everyone they can move things forward. A gaffer sitting outside smoking, should be inside pushing a dolly or helping put sand bags on stands. A grip sitting outside smoking, should be inside, helping hide cables and if need be, give another department a hand... IF NEEDED.

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts and ya know, on bigger shows there is so much fat, it doesn't matter. I use to shoot commercials for regional television on 35mm and we'd have hours of downtime a day, but there was so much money, nobody cared. On these smaller shows today, every penny counts and that's why it's nice to have other skills outside of your "specialty" so you can be of help on set, so that crew likes you because your capable of doing more then just push the dolly. This is why I enjoy being a jack of all trades and it's why the productions I work on, can get away with smaller crews, putting the savings on screen through better actors, better locations and better production design. I also personally enjoy learning new things and being able to experiment with what I learned on my own productions. Then once I feel confident, I can then push those skills into pay jobs and the next thing you know, I'm a colorist. Why not? I have a $30,000 color grading monitor, a 4k Blackmagic card, know DaVinci well enough and know enough to be dangerous, what could go wrong? LOL :P

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving! It was great catching up with some friends and taking some time off from editing/coloring. I'm looking forward to showing ya'll what I've been working on this year, once I get the approval from bossman. :)

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why should I pay someone $250/day to download 4 cards, when there are a bunch of guys outside smoking, one of which could be assigned to do that task, if they knew anything about it.

 

I would not trust anyone without DIT experience to do the downloading and backups, a screwup costs easily 20k + and may go unnoticed at first so that it is impossible to reshoot...

 

Paying more for specialized top pro people is for having smoother and faster workflow with still possibly better end result. it is mainly about saving time and depending on the production this can be more or less important compared to financial aspects (saving time can save money but in small budget shoots one may have "free" extra time available so that things can be done in high quality even with limited money by just donating more time to the finishing)

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You would really get a gaffer.. who is having a smoke..after his/her work is done .. for the time being.. do the down loading ..!!! why not ask a cab driver who might be having a quite sleep between shifts .. Doris from the canteen.. rather than actually employ a person who does that as a job..even at the huge rate of $250!.. you have said some really nutty stuff .. but this is very close to being a piss take.. honestly I think you are just winding us all up, and having a good laugh.. actually I really hope that the case :)...

Edited by Robin R Probyn
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You would really get a gaffer.. who is having a smoke..after his/her work is done .. for the time being.. do the down loading ..!!! why not ask a cab driver who might be having a quite sleep between shifts .. Doris from the canteen.. rather than actually employ a person who does that as a job..even at the huge rate of $250!.. you have said some really nutty stuff .. but this is very close to being a piss take.. honestly I think you are just winding us all up, and having a good laugh.. actually I really hope that the case :)...

I think the gaffer doing downloading is a bit of a stretch but the other things seem reasonable. I don't think anyone is winding anyone up but I think you are going to have to accept that you two inhabit different worlds. The specialist and the generalist. Film is a collaborative art but if you're a "filmmaker" you'd expect to pick up any and all jobs. You don't expect craft skills from a taxi driver or a cook.

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We had a great gaffing crew, but they refused to help the camera department. So after they setup the lights, they went outside and had a smoke, whilst we needed someone to download cards. Umm, why should I pay someone $250/day to download 4 cards, when there are a bunch of guys outside smoking, one of which could be assigned to do that task, if they knew anything about it.

 

If the day ever should come that you decide to interrupt a gaffer's smoke to tell him he needs to download footage... please make sure someone gets it on camera. :lol: :P

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I think the gaffer doing downloading is a bit of a stretch but the other things seem reasonable. I don't think anyone is winding anyone up but I think you are going to have to accept that you two inhabit different worlds. The specialist and the generalist. Film is a collaborative art but if you're a "filmmaker" you'd expect to pick up any and all jobs. You don't expect craft skills from a taxi driver or a cook.

True and it's just an example of wasteful time. Honestly, I wouldn't trust anyone but someone in the camera department, trained by myself to do it anyway.

 

I think people like myself do have specialties... I mean I went to school for cinematography and I think it's something I'm decent at. I've operated and AC'd for some pretty good DP's as well and picked up quite a bit of knowledge along the way. I do work on smaller, more industrial/commercial shows, but that's mainly because my demo reel blows. So it's always a catch 22, either you stop doing everything else and only shoot for a while to build a reel, or you diversify in order to stay afloat. A lot of the other things I do are for the consistency of work. I do enjoy editing and coloring, but in the long term the camera is my forte. I think you'd find many "generalists" to have the same mind set. We all have ONE skill that's greater then all the rest.

 

Mark you are right about one very important thing though... I do inhabit an entirely different world then most people. That's what happens when you teach and try to be a successful filmmaker at the same time. That's what happens when you run a 501c3 charity and you're constantly in meetings about building the business and trying to get donations. It's what happens when you're gifted opportunities you can't turn down. You either go with the flow and think of the long term, or you say no thanks and regret that decision 20 years later. Since I make the time to have meetings and meet people, I'm always open to new ideas and helping wherever I can. This is part of the reason I simply don't have the time to work on bigger shows. 10 years ago I wish I had dropped everything I was doing and focused on cinematography. Hindsight is always 20/20.

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Even to this day Steven Soderbergh doesn't use DIT . But I'm sure he does use a pro when it comes to the finishing .

 

That's why you have to segregate Tyler because your methods would not work for every thing which is basically what every one is trying to tell you .

Like I said nothing you said was confusing your just confused about what happens outside of your world .

 

I guess when everyone's is telling you your wrong your still right .

Working on more shows doesn't give you more expirience . Some people work on a show for 8 months of the year but have a whole lot of expirience

Edited by Martin Ubilluz
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I've never heard electricians doing any sort of camera department work let alone download footage. What's next? You might as well ask them to pull focus while you're at it too. It is against the union rules. Much like, you wouldn't have a second AC start rigging trusses, putting up lights etc - you would have grips and electricians to do those tasks. 250 for a DIT? I would take that as that's a steal deal. Commercial PAs make 200/day so go figure.

Edited by Giray Izcan
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I think the gaffer doing downloading is a bit of a stretch but the other things seem reasonable. I don't think anyone is winding anyone up but I think you are going to have to accept that you two inhabit different worlds. The specialist and the generalist. Film is a collaborative art but if you're a "filmmaker" you'd expect to pick up any and all jobs. You don't expect craft skills from a taxi driver or a cook.

 

 

Yes your right Mark.. I just get wound up with Tyler handing out advise to new beebies.. as this is "this way its done professionally " when 99% of the time its nothing like what is done professionally or even on amateur shoots..as well as not really have the best grasp of alot of technical stuff .. his advise should be couched in the fact thats its from the very fringes of the industry.. which is fine .. but not given out as pearls of wisdom from someone at the top of game,an expert it seems in everything.. working on "high end " productions.. this is constantly stated.. which they patently are not.. its just alot of bad advise going out to people who dont know better on this forum.. thats it.. its bad for the forums rep.. I REALLY will not say anything more..

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I've never heard electricians doing any sort of camera department work let alone download footage. What's next? You might as well ask them to pull focus while you're at it too. It is against the union rules. Much like, you wouldn't have a second AC start rigging trusses, putting up lights etc - you would have grips and electricians to do those tasks. 250 for a DIT? I would take that as that's a steal deal. Commercial PAs make 200/day so go figure.

 

 

 

 

Yes your right Mark.. I just get wound up with Tyler handing out advise to new beebies.. as this is "this way its done professionally " when 99% of the time its nothing like what is done professionally or even on amateur shoots..as well as not really have the best grasp of alot of technical stuff .. his advise should be couched in the fact thats its from the very fringes of the industry.. which is fine .. but not given out as pearls of wisdom from someone at the top of game,an expert it seems in everything.. working on "high end " productions.. this is constantly stated.. which they patently are not.. its just alot of bad advise going out to people who dont know better on this forum.. thats it.. its bad for the forums rep.. I REALLY will not say anything more..

 

 

 

Thats very true statements both of you. I have noticed the same thing Robin, he makes a lot of statements that are far from true other then for the projects he works on. Even though theres multiple more experienced people telling him something different. It also comes back to what I was saying about segregating different types of productions because different methods are used for different type of shows, his methods would deff. not work on many types of productions .

 

Also $250 for a downloader is very low and for Tyler to trust any one to download media with out any type of understanding of how to do a check sum / or media report would be a disaster. It also shows he's far removed from many types of production because here in florida I pay Production assistant $250 a day . It would be crazy to think a downloader who you entrust all the days footage and basically the entire production to some one getting payed $250 or a guy smoking a cigarette out side.

Theres nothing wrong with working on lower productions or being a jack of all trades as sometimes like Tyler said its whats needed when your starting out , theres no judgment there . But for that person to say this is how all productions work is not very good.

Like i said earlier it docent matter how many productions you have worked on , expirience is not based on quantity.

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Lets face it, the majority of people who read this forum, do so to be educated, are we in agreement on that? As a consequence, they are most likely people like myself, trying to find our way in the industry.

 

Another thing to understand is there is a VERY MYOPIC group of people who work consistently on decent pay shows. Lets say it's 5% of all cinematographers in the world, that's probably a high number. Why would any of them care to come on here or even engage in a conversation? I mean there are some great DP's who frequent this place, but compared to the population of beginners and newbies, the pro's are in a single digit percentile.

 

So this is why I don't really feel it's necessary to segregate at the budget level MOST people can afford, everything is done in a similar fashion. So it's like, why would anyone want to know or discuss what it's like to have a 5 person crew in your camera department, when the VAST majority of people have to operate the camera themselves with little to no help. In the real world, the world where thousands of productions are made a year for peanuts, it's a privilege to have an AC, let alone anyone else in the "camera" department. For every one of the productions with $250/day PA's, there are 1000 other shoots going on without a single PA.

 

Point being, I'm glad you guys get to work on bigger stuff and I'm personally very thankful to have a place where more experienced guys are here to answer questions. At the same time, you've gotta understand THE VAST MAJORITY of people in this creative world, will never, ever work on productions like some of you high end guys get the opportunity to work on. They want to learn about what they CAN do with limited resources, not what they can do with hundreds of thousands or more. Honestly, money solves a lot of problems, more crew, more resources, more "specialized" people. Bigger shows are a dream to work on because if you gel with the crew, as a DP you don't have to do anything but sit back and watch the magic unfold in front of your eyes... I've witnessed this first hand on bigger shows and it's pretty cool. So we can get back to talking about the OP's project, understanding he's got a $3000 budget, which is kinda decent in the grass-roots short film movement where you're doing everything yourself. That is reality guys... not some pie in the sky gig that pays enough for a penthouse in Manhattan.

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